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Muslims have no right to vote: this is the message that was sent by the state machinery and police to the country on November 20, while the elections to the assembly were underway in Maharashtra and Jharkhand and nine by-elections were held in Uttar Pradesh. Nevertheless, Muslim women in UP deserve salute who undeterred of threat of firing by a police official, who publicly aimed his revolver at them asking not to move forward, pushed their way to the polling booth.

The National People’s Power (NPP) has won a historic victory in the Sri Lankan Parliament elections. For the first time, a political party has won a two-thirds majority through the proportional representation system. The NPP has won 159 of the 225 seats polling a record high of 61.6 per cent of the vote. This is an extraordinary performance considering the fact that the NPP had got only three seats in the last election held in 2020.

As if he needed a doctrine to make a strike, the Russian president Vladimir Putin, has amended the so-called Russian nuclear doctrine. The change provides for Russia to strike even a non-nuclear state with nuclear weapons in case it is “supported” by a country which has nuclear weapons.

Centre and State governments in India are in need of raising both tax and non-tax revenue, dismantling the administered pricing mechanism, reducing subsidies, and reorienting expenditure toward national and state-level priorities. This is essential to ensure India remains on a sustainable fiscal path with higher growth, given the high public debt at the Centre and state level.

The victory of the Republican candidate Donald Trump in November 5 U.S. Presidential elections defeating the Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris has brought to light the big dilemma of the pro-Bernie Sanders socialist wing of the Democratic Party. Sanders is a long time senator heading the progressive wing of the Democratic Party trying to impart a pro- labour orientation to its policies.

The results of the nine Uttar Pradesh bypolls will by far be more important than those of Maharashtra and Jharkhand assembly polls, if only because Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who spent a lot of time in both states, cannot afford to lose Uttar Pradesh to Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav, who is looking for the Yogi to go back to his 'mutt' and be a 'muttadeesh'. Also, there is the spectre of Union Home Minister Amit Shah whose interest in Yogi Adityanath’s performance is more than academic.

A fascist has one too many abominable attributes. But basically, someone to be called fascist will be found to be anti-liberal and anti-left. A fascist leader will be promoting a nationalist dictatorship and he will have a positive disposition to violence. Mass mobilization besides, he will be prone to building himself as a charismatic authoritarian leader who overtly and covertly will stay engaged in snuffing out all critics at all times. Some leaders will wear democratic mask but their actions will give out their fascist bearings. Since her resignation as prime minister and the army aided fleeing the country for friendly neighbour India as a result of unrelenting protests turning violent with students in the forefront, Sheikh Hasina to her acute discomfiture finds that her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is called a fascist by several leaders of the interim government.

On November 26, 1949, our Constitution was adopted and became operative on January 26, 1950.

The Ukraine war entered its 1000th day on Tuesday, November 19 and on the same afternoon, President Zelensky used for the first time high tech AATCMS missiles for striking inside Russia after getting green signal from the outgoing President Joe Biden only two days before. Soon after, President Putin announced lowering the Russian threshold for using nuclear weapons agreed to earlier.

G20 Presidency has called the Rio de Janeiro Declaration “historical” as the leaders committed to taxing billionaires, tackling inequalities, and support for climate action with focus on sustainable growth and fight against poverty, but it has taken limited concrete steps and focus was on long term goals rather than immediate actions.